Politics

North Carolina Lawmakers Propose Bill To Declare Official Religion

A bill put forth by Republican lawmakers in North Carolina seeks to do away with the that whole “separation of church and state” business and allow the state to declare an official religion — and nullify any federal action against Christian prayer by public bodies. The move branched out of a lawsuit involving the American Civil Liberties Union, and its backers argue that each state’s sovereignty allows it.

In the lawsuit between the ACLU and the Rowan County Board of Commissioners, the ACLU said ” the board has opened 97 percent of its meetings since 2007 with explicitly Christian prayers,” according to WRAL’s report. “Since the Republican takeover in 2011, the state Senate chaplain has offered an explicitly Christian invocation virtually every day of session, despite the fact that some senators are not Christian.”